There's an interesting twist about to take place in The Race for 64B. One-time comer Martin Ludden, who was considering running for the DFL endorsement, is hosting a Meet and Greet for Matt Freeman tonight.
Both Ludden and Freeman are alums of U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar's staff, Ludden on the official side and Freeman on the campaign side.
Ludden says he's happy to endorse Freeman: "I don't think anybody is going to outwork Matt Freeman on the campaign trail, and nobody will outwork him in the Legislature."
Here's the invite:
Martin Ludden, a Comcast executive and Iraq war vet, says he's NOT going to run for the open seat in 64B next year.
In response to an inquiry by The Race for 64B, Ludden said he'd decided against it:
"After very serious consideration and lots of conversations with friends and local leaders, my wife and I have made the difficult decision that the timing of a run for office is not right for our family. I remain excited about the future of this district and I look forward to finding other ways to continue serving my home community and the people of Minnesota."
That leaves at least seven, and possibly eight people still in the running on the DFL side.
Here's a list from the Senate DFL District 64 website. Tomorrow night the party is having a candidate, well, what to call it? Gathering, perhaps?
These folks are on the agenda, at any rate:
Melanie McMahon
Gloria Zaiger
Beth Fraser
Greta Bergstrom
Dave Pinto
Matt Freeman
Matt Bergeron
You may also note that absent from this list is former legislator Brian Bergson. He's been tentative about a run in the past, but The Race for 64B has asked him directly, and hopefully we'll have a little clarity on that issue shortly.
Iraq vet, Nativity alum and former Klobuchar staffer Martin Ludden says he's now "definitely considering" a run for the 64B seat in the Legislature being vacated by Michael Paymar.
"I grew up in 64B, just down the street from Widmers," Ludden said in an interview today. He also went to St. Thomas and got a degree in photography and American studies from the U of M.
He'a an Army vet. He joined the Reserves in the spring of 2001, and stayed in the reserves for almost 10 years, including two stints in Iraq, in 2003-2004 and again as a squad leader in 2009-2010.
After college, he joined the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and worked as a veterans service representative, processing claims by vets for the agency. He worked out at Fort Snelling, where U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar had her office, and eventually joined her staff as an outreach director with a focus on veterans and public safety.
He did a brief stint after that as the executive director of the Disabled American Veterans Foundation, and then joined Comcast, where he's a government affairs manager focusing on their Internet Essentials program.
"It's getting low income families hooked up to the internet with a very low price product," he says. "It's helping kind of bridge the digital divide, which I would argue is a significant part of the achievement gap. Or can be."
(Vice president for Ludden's Comcast division, for those of you keeping track at home, is Emmett Coleman, brother of St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman.)
Ludden says he moved back into the district in 2010 and thinks he's be a good fit representing the area at the Capitol.
"I think I've got kind of a unique skill set," Ludden says. "I have cross-sector experience, public, private, military, non-profit, and that comes with having to work with people of a pretty broad background in order to get stuff done. And I think that's a skill set that would translate pretty well to the Capitol."
Ludden says he plans to seek the DFL endorsement.
UPDATE: He says he hopes to make a decision in the next week or so.
